


Five Times Methos Met Parker

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Category: Highlander, Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: hlh_shortcuts, Crossover, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It took the muse most of month to decide what he wanted to do, and just how much he did or did not wish to give a damn about humanity. Fortunately for most of humanity around him, he decided Kronos still hadn't grown up enough for him to stop hiding from the rest of the Horsemen. Or perhaps unfortunately, considering who he did decide to take up with.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Times Methos Met Parker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rodlox](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rodlox).



> It took the muse most of month to decide what he wanted to do, and just how much he did or did not wish to give a damn about humanity. Fortunately for most of humanity around him, he decided Kronos still hadn't grown up enough for him to stop hiding from the rest of the Horsemen. Or perhaps unfortunately, considering who he did decide to take up with.

The first time he met Parker, he was watching grainy security feed at a bank where he'd had one of his various safety deposit boxes, and she was miles away with the documents he'd entrusted the bank with almost two decades ago, and the money he'd intended to use as the seed money for a new identity. It wasn't the only one that was coming into it's own now, but it had been the one he'd been drawn to once Adam Pierson became too dangerous to be. Why she'd taken the documents along with the cash when she wouldn't have any use for them, he wasn't certain, but he didn't intend to stick around long enough to find out.

He didn't even take the time to go back to his dormitory to retrieve his belongings, knowing the Watchers would take what they wanted to keep, and discard or give away the rest. Nothing there tied the graduate student Adam Pierson to the ex-soldier Paul Landau who stepped onto a train headed to Berlin save a face that never quite turned to face any cameras.

It was perhaps useful that he knew the Watchers currently in Paris, and had been able to avoid them since the fiasco with Kalas. The potential of it to draw the wrong attention to the truth of who he was hadn't been lost on him, and it would take a miracle for anyone to find out his sense of self-preservation was stronger than his reverence for the rules of a Game he hadn't taken seriously for millennia. He hadn't lived as long as he had without finding more than one creative and effective way of getting rid of a body.

Settling back into his seat, he kept a discreet eye on his fellow passengers once they pulled away from the platform, ostensibly reading a book that he'd read more than once before. He hadn't spotted anyone familiar or suspicious on the platform, or as he was getting aboard, but that didn't mean there wasn't someone there. Only that they were good, and he didn't know their face.

An uneventful trip to Berlin, where he took a flight to London, and from there to New York, shifting identities with each change of location. It was a young and modestly wealthy Benjamin Woods that stepped off the plane and caught a cab to a Manhattan hotel. He couldn't stay here long, not with one of the infamous MacLeods in the city. From what he had seen before he had to abandon Adam Pierson, the two attracted trouble even when they were trying to live quiet lives.

Benjamin had a small home on a decent piece of property in upstate New York, where he could retreat from the world for a decade or so, until he was willing to take on a more public persona again. A quiet life without worries that he'd run into someone who knew Adam Pierson, or another Immortal looking for Methos. Neither irate Watchers nor headhunting Immortals really appealed to him.

~ ~~ ~

The second time he met Parker, Benjamin was a guest at a party in New York, and she was the girl at the coat check. He controlled his reaction before she turned from the guest before him to take his coat, giving her only the polite nod she would expect from a guest, and keeping a careful eye on her while she hung his coat up, and brought him a voucher for when he picked it up. Glad this time that he only had the one credit card through Benjamin's bank, and only small change in the wallet. Even if that didn't stop her from rifling through his pockets, at least she wouldn't cause any trouble with keeping up appearances with this persona.

His only worry now would be her connecting Benjamin Woods with Jean Chaput. If she remembered the face from the documents she'd stolen three years ago in Paris. No matter that she'd showed no signs of recognizing him when she'd taken his coat.

Returning to pick up his coat a few hours later, she had been replaced by someone else, the young man retrieving his coat without comment. Nothing was missing save the cash he'd carried, and he returned home with a foreboding feeling. A feeling borne out when she broke into his house three days later, and took an artifact he'd recently acquired.

More annoying than anything else, since he'd already determined it wasn't actually one of his pieces of junk he'd discarded without thought over the centuries. But valuable enough to report to the insurance company, and meet with their investigator. Some man barely older than Benjamin would be, who was supposed to be one of the best the company had.

Nathan Ford was the sort of person Methos would prefer to avoid on principle, though at least there was no sign of a Watcher tattoo on his wrist, and no sense of even a pre-Immortal buzz. Just a man who made his living tracking down people and the items they stole, and was far too good at it for Methos to be comfortable. He made Benjamin happy, though, bringing back the stolen item in less than a month.

So long as the Watchers never recruited the man, and he never found out about Adam Pierson, he should, for now, be safe. Though, perhaps it would be prudent to change insurance companies, just in case someone else took it into their mind to steal one of the artifacts he had under Benjamin's name.

~ ~~ ~

The third time he met her, she was sitting on the island in his kitchen, eating chocolates he'd intended to take with him for his date that evening. A date that had everything to do with keeping up the persona of Benjamin Woods, and nothing to do with any real attraction to the woman he was taking to a dinner party.

"You have really good taste in chocolate." She popped another one into her mouth, talking around it as she added, "Expensive, too."

"I know." Methos crossed his arms, staying in the doorway rather than getting any closer to her. He had no desire to find out if she could pick his pockets as well as she robbed banks or broke into houses.

"Why do you have two different birthdays?" She leaned forward, her hands on the edge of the counter, feet swinging like a teenage girl.

"Who said I did?" He gave her a wry look, and she shrugged, flashing him a brief grin.

"Not two real birthdays. But you have two birth certificates. Real ones, or really, really good forgeries."

Methos echoed her shrug, curling his lips into a sardonic grin that didn't quite fit Benjamin. "I only have one birthday, and only one birth certificate. It's up in my safe, though I'm sure you've checked that already."

Parker grinned, and nodded. "Yesterday while you were out shopping." She reached for another of the chocolates. "You should change your security system, it's not very good."

"It's good enough to deter the normal sort of thieves that might try to break in." Not good enough to stop someone like Parker, but it wasn't meant to. He only knew of a handful of thieves good enough to get through it without setting it off, and most of them wouldn't have any reason to bother Benjamin Woods.

"But not good enough to stop me."

"Something good enough to stop you once won't work a second time. And you'd take it as a challenge."

"Probably." Parker shrugged again, acknowledging his point. "The security system isn't the real challenge, though."

"Oh?" Methos suspected he knew what challenge she'd tackled, and the idea of her figuring out exactly what he was hiding was more than a little disturbing. Even if she didn't tell anyone what she'd found, the simple fact of knowing could put her at risk. Particularly if anyone ever uncovered her digging.

"You're not a thief, and you're pretending to be someone else." Parker met his gaze steadily. "You're not a hitter, or a con artist, or anything else criminal. You're hiding in the middle of nowhere, and you have two birthdays."

"Maybe I'm a spy." He raised an eyebrow, challenging her to brush that one off.

He doubted it would deter her from looking, but it might put her on the wrong path, at least for a while. The less she actually found out, the better. And he doubted there were still records of the one time he did play spy, in the seventeenth century. Not anywhere she'd be looking.

"Are you?" Parker tilted her head, watching him. "You don't look like a spy."

"And you don't look like a thief." Methos shrugged. "Appearences can be deceiving."

"Yeah." Parker pressed her lips together a moment, her expression more amused than anything else. She hopped off the counter a moment later, making him straighten, ready to back away from her if she came closer. He really didn't need his wallet to go missing today.

"See you!" She waved as she headed for the other door, that led through to the dining room, and the doors out onto the patio. He let her leave, certain he'd see her again. Possibly with more questions, more annoying or perhaps more perceptive.

~ ~~ ~

The fourth time he met Parker, Benjamin had recently died in a car accident, and he was settling into a flat in Los Angeles. Perhaps not the best place to start over, but it was across the country, and large enough a city that he should be able to vanish readily enough.

Julian Burnes didn't even have a chance to finish unpacking before there was a knock on his door, a familiar face on the other side smiling cheerfully as she waved. Parker being polite enough to knock was almost enough for him to let her in. Or at least, to open the door, the chain keeping it from opening all the way.

"I found your bank." The first words out of Parker's mouth were not at all comforting, and he narrowed his eyes at her, tempted to shut the door in her face. If he hadn't been certain she'd just come back later, and find a way in that didn't involve the door. "I didn't steal anything, I promise."

He found that about as likely as him staying dead. Not that he'd say it to her face, not when this was the first time he'd seen her in nine years. A longer gap than he'd expected, and he'd found himself worried at one point that something had happened to her, before he'd shaken it off, and gone on with Benjamin's life.

"Are you going to invite me in?" Parker gave him a small frown, shifting on her feet. "That's what you do with friends."

"I didn't realize we were friends."

"That's how I got past the doorman." Parker shrugged. "And I brought a house-warming present. I think it's a boy." She held out the end of a leash, and Methos followed the leather lead down to the floor - and the iguana looking back at him with an unreadable expression.

"Sophie said a puppy would be better, but I didn't think you'd like one. And the painting is still a bit too new to try to give to someone." She looked uncomfortable when he still didn't take the leash. "I didn't make a mistake, did I? Maybe I should have gotten the puppy..."

Methos closed the door, undoing the chain before he opened the door. "Don't touch anything."

"I won't. Promise." Parker nudged the iguana with her toe, walking it into the flat, and letting the leash go once the door was shut behind her. Methos grabbed it before the thing could take the chance to bolt for somewhere else - his room, if he was particularly unlucky - and giving Parker an irritated look.

She just smiled, hopping up onto the bar between the kitchen and the main room, swinging her feet like an overgrown child, and ignoring the iguana now that she'd gotten it into his flat. "You have any more of those nice chocolates you had last time?"

"No." Methos reached down, picking up the iguana, and heading for the loo. He left it in the tub, locking the door behind him. "Nor do I intend to purchase any."

"Because you died?"

Parker's dead-pan question almost made him reach for the gun in the coat that hung at the end of the bar. He really didn't need someone else figuring out he was Immortal, not now.

She shifted, drawing up her feet and sitting cross-legged on the counter. "I haven't told anyone. I saw the obituary online." She shrugged. "Is that why you had more than one birthday? Because you have trouble staying dead?"

"I avoid dying if I can." Methos waited a moment longer before leaving the gun where it was, and heading for the sink instead. It wasn't worth having to start over in another country to get rid of Parker. "Why are you here?"

"Because you're interesting. And I'm bored." Parker shrugged. "So I went looking for where you were now. You weren't that hard to find."

Methos snorted. She was probably the only person he'd ever had told him he was easy to find, rather than dying of old age before they could track him down. He leaned against the sink, drying his hands as he watched her. She watched back, not fidgeting as much as he expected, almost utterly still. Her face had filled out a little since the last time he'd seen her, and softened. No longer looking quite as hungry under it all.

"Sophie?" he prompted her after a while, curious about the name she'd mentioned. She'd been very much a loner every other time he'd seen her, slipping in and out of places without any assistance, even from the inside.

"She's a friend. Sorta." Parker shrugged. "I work with her. And some other people. It's weird, but fun, at least most of the time. Even if we don't keep most of the money."

He raised an eyebrow, surprised at that bit of information. It wasn't typical of a thief, though he knew at least one Immortal who had that same strange streak of altruism in his criminal activity. "Who else?"

Parker snorted, rolling her eyes. "You can't avoid them if you stay in the city." She paused a moment, then shrugged, and gave him three names anyway. Only the one sounded at all familiar, and only if her 'Nate' was the Nathan Ford who'd been the insurance company's investigator when Parker had stolen an artifact from Benjamin.

He didn't bother to point out to her just how well he had learned to blend into the rest of humanity, fully confident of his ability to either avoid her friends or at least slip away before they noticed him.

~ ~~ ~

The fifth time he met Parker, he was trying to be unnoticable in the back of a bar near his flat, and trying to remember if he'd pissed off someone capable of cursing him. Or just what he'd done to so completely destroy any good karma he'd had before he met Parker.

"Julian!" Parker grinned, sliding onto the bench across the booth from him, the familiar - if older - Nathan Ford following behind her. The frown on the man's face didn't bode well for his continued ability to hide what he was from them. Particularly since Parker was good at drawing attention, and there was still a Watcher sitting at the bar. A Watcher Methos remembered from Paris, despite the decade and a half of age that had subtly altered her face.

"Keep your voice down, Parker," he muttered, hunching his shoulders a little more, taking a sip of his beer as he kept an eye on the Watcher. She hadn't turned to see what was happening at the back booth, but the ingrained paranoia Methos had developed screamed that it was only a matter of time.

Parker frowned, twisting to peer around the edge of the booth in the direction he was looking. "Who's that?"

"Someone who knows more than you do, and would be a good deal more trouble." Methos didn't bother to elaborate, flicking a glance at Nate as the man waited for Parker to turn back around, and slide further into the booth. After a moment, he asked, his voice low enough not to carry, "Show me your wrists."

Nate frowned, his confusion clear. "Why?"

"Because I've killed to keep my secrets, and wouldn't hesitate to kill you if you don't." He met Nate's gaze with an expression that was utterly bland, his tone conversational. It usually gave mortals - and even some Immortals - the creeps, as well as convincing them he had about as much conscious as a shark.

There was silence a long moment, Nate watching him with a frown. Parker's snort and apparently impulsive displaying of both her own arms, the insides of her wrists up, broke the building tension, as well as getting the desired show of the insides of Nate's wrists after a moment. As if Nate were indulging him.

The lack of a Watcher's tattoo made him relax a little, though a glance at the still-occupied bar didn't let him relax much.

"So what are you so worried about?" Nate leaned back in the booth, watching Methos with a shrewd gaze. "Someone looking for you?"

"Only if they notice I still exist." Methos shrugged, taking another sip of his beer. He really wished he'd had the sense to stay home today, instead of indulging the need to keep up Julian's more sociable mask. It hadn't been more than a few months, and he really didn't want to have to abandon Julian already.

That, and he didn't want Parker following him again.

"We can make them stop following you." Parker sounded as if this was something she did all the time - and considering who she'd shown up with, he wouldn't be surprised if she did. "Or at least make them think you're dead."

"No." Methos shook his head. That would attract too much attention to the fact he wasn't already dead. "Not yet, anyway."

The conversation didn't last much longer, only until the Watcher left with an old man, and caught a cab. Long enough for him to figure out what to do next, and listen to Parker about the sort of jobs she was doing now, amusement clear on Nate's face as the mortal watched them both.

~ ~~ ~

The last time he met Parker, it was a clear, warm summer day, and he brought lilies even though she wouldn't understand why.


End file.
